The present disclosure generally relates to water treatment. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to methods of making water treatment compositions.
Wastewater and natural waters (e.g., surface water or groundwater) may contain a variety of dissolved inorganic substances from natural and anthropogenic sources. Regulatory limits have been set for a number of these substances in drinking water and for discharges to natural waters in order to protect the public health and environmental quality. In many locations, the regulatory limits for many of these substances are set at very low levels, e.g., about 2 to about 50 micrograms per liter (μg/L).
Current water treatment processes, such as granular iron media adsorption, modified coagulation/filtration, reverse osmosis hyperfiltration, anion exchange, activated alumina adsorption, modified lime softening, electrodialysis reversal, and oxidation/filtration, are cost-effective for use in large municipal water treatment facilities. However, as the regulated levels of these contaminants are reduced even further, many of these processes are rendered inadequate. Furthermore, these water treatment processes are not always cost-effective for use in small water treatment systems (e.g., those that serve communities of 25 to 10,000 people) and point-of-use or point-of-entry systems (e.g., for use in private wells).
A need therefore remains for improved water treatment compositions and methods for making such compositions.